Hỏa Lò Prison

"Hanoi Hilton" redirects here. For the 1987 film, see The Hanoi Hilton (film). For the hotel operated by the Hilton International Corporation, see Hilton Hanoi Opera Hotel.
The Hanoi Hilton in a 1970 aerial surveillance photo.

Coordinates: 21°1′31″N 105°50′47″E / 21.02528°N 105.84639°E / 21.02528; 105.84639

The Hỏa Lò Prison was a prison used by the French colonists in Vietnam for political prisoners, and later by North Vietnam for U.S. Prisoners of War during the Vietnam War. During this later period it was sarcastically known to American POWs as the Hanoi Hilton. The prison was demolished during the 1990s, though the gatehouse remains as a museum.

French era

The French name "Maison Centrale" above the gate of Hỏa Lò.
Museum reconstruction of French era prisoners in Hỏa Lò.

The name Hoa Lo, commonly translated as "fiery furnace" or even "Hell's hole",[1] also means "stove". The name originated from the street name phố Hỏa Lò, due to the concentration of stores selling wood stoves and coal-fire stoves along the street from pre-colonial times.

The prison was built in Hanoi by the French, in dates ranging from 1886–1889[1] to 1898[2] to 1901,[3][4] when Vietnam was still part of French Indochina. The French called the prison Maison Centrale[1]—literally, Central House, a traditional euphemism to denote prisons in France. It was located near Hanoi's French Quarter.[2] It was intended to hold Vietnamese prisoners, particularly political prisoners agitating for independence who were often subject to torture and execution.[4] A 1913 renovation expanded its capacity from 460 inmates to 600.[2] It was nevertheless often overcrowded, holding some 730 prisoners on a given day in 1916, a figure which would rise to 895 in 1922 and 1,430 in 1933.[2] By 1954 it held more than 2000 people;[1] with its inmates held in subhuman conditions,[4] it had become a symbol of colonialist exploitation and of the bitterness of the Vietnamese towards the French.[1]

The central urban location of the prison also became part of its early character. During the 1910s through 1930s, street peddlers made an occupation of passing outside messages in through the jail's windows and tossing tobacco and opium over the walls; letters and packets would be thrown out to the street in the opposite direction.[5] Within the prison itself, communication and ideas passed. Indeed, many of the future leading figures in Communist North Vietnam spent time in Maison Centrale during the 1930s and 1940s.[6]

Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 1954

Following the defeat at the battle of Dien Bien Phu and the 1954 Geneva Accords the French left Hanoi and the prison came under the authority of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.[7] Thereafter the prison served as an education center for revolutionary doctrine and activity, and it was kept around after the French left to mark its historical significance to the North Vietnamese.[6]

Vietnam War

Shortly after the war, ex-POW Mike McGrath annotated this detailed map of Hanoi to show the location of prisons. He did it so he would not forget where the camps were.

During the Vietnam War, the first U.S. prisoner to be sent to Hoa Lo was Lieutenant, Junior Grade Everett Alvarez Jr., who was shot down on August 5, 1964.[8] From the beginning, U.S. POWs endured miserable conditions, including poor food and unsanitary conditions.[9] The prison complex was sarcastically nicknamed the "Hanoi Hilton" by the American POWs, in reference to the well-known Hilton Hotel chain. There is some disagreement among the first group of POWs who coined the name but F8D pilot Bob Shumaker[10] was the first to write it down, carving "Welcome to the Hanoi Hilton" on the handle of a pail to greet the arrival of Air Force Lieutenant Robert Peel.[11]

Beginning in early 1967, a new area of the prison was opened for incoming American POWs;[12] it was dubbed "Little Vegas", and its individual buildings and areas were named after Las Vegas Strip landmarks, such as "Golden Nugget," "Thunderbird," "Stardust," "Riviera," and the "Desert Inn."[13] These names were chosen because many pilots had trained at Nellis Air Force Base, located in proximity to Las Vegas.[12] American pilots were frequently already in bad shape by the time they were captured, injured either during their ejection or in landing on the ground.[14]

The "Little Vegas" area built for American POWs in 1967, shown in a final inspection in 1973 shortly before the Americans' release.

The Hanoi Hilton was one site used by the North Vietnamese Army to house, torture and interrogate captured servicemen, mostly American pilots shot down during bombing raids.[15] Although North Vietnam was a signatory of the Third Geneva Convention of 1949,[15] which demanded "decent and humane treatment" of prisoners of war, severe torture methods were employed, such as rope bindings, irons, beatings, and prolonged solitary confinement.[8][15][16] The aim of the torture was usually not acquiring military information;[8] rather, it was to break the will of the prisoners, both individually and as a group.[8][17] The goal of the North Vietnamese was to get written or recorded statements from the prisoners that criticized U.S. conduct of the war and praised how the North Vietnamese treated them.[8] Such POW statements would be viewed as a propaganda victory in the battle to sway world and U.S. domestic opinion against the U.S. war effort.[8][13] In the end, North Vietnamese torture was sufficiently brutal and prolonged that virtually every American POW so subjected made a statement of some kind at some time.[18] (As one later wrote of finally being forced to make an anti-American statement: "I had learned what we all learned over there: Every man has his breaking point. I had reached mine.")[13] Realizing this, the Americans' aim became to absorb as much torture as they could before giving in;[16] one later described the internal code the POWs developed and instructed new arrivals on as: "Take physical torture until you are right at the edge of losing your ability to be rational. At that point, lie, do, or say whatever you must do to survive. But you first must take physical torture."[19]

After making statements, the POWs would admit to each other what had happened, lest shame or guilt consume them or make them more vulnerable to additional North Vietnamese pressure.[16] Nevertheless, the POWs obsessed over what they had done, and would years after their release still be haunted by the "confessions" or other statements they had made.[20] As another POW later said, "To this day I get angry with myself. But we did the best we could. [We realize], over time, that we all fall short of what we aspire to be. And that is where forgiveness comes in."[20]

Regarding treatment at Hoa Lo and other prisons, Communists countered by stating that prisoners were treated well and in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.[21] During 1969, they broadcast a series of coerced statements from American prisoners that purported to support this notion.[21] The North Vietnamese would also maintain that their prisons were no worse than prisons for POWs and political prisoners in South Vietnam, such as the one on Côn Sơn Island. Mistreatment of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese prisoners and South Vietnamese dissidents in South Vietnam's prisons was indeed frequent, as was North Vietnamese treatment of South Vietnamese prisoners and their own dissidents.[22]

When prisoners of war began to be released from this and other North Vietnamese prisons during the Johnson administration, their testimonies revealed widespread and systematic abuse of prisoners of war. Initially, this information was downplayed by American authorities for fear that conditions might worsen for those remaining in North Vietnamese custody.[13] Policy changed under the Nixon administration, when mistreatment of the prisoners was publicized by U.S. Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird and others.[13] Beginning in late 1969, treatment of the prisoners became less severe and generally more tolerable.[8] Following the late 1970 attempted rescue operation at Sơn Tây prison camp, most of the POWs at the outlying camps were moved to Hoa Lo, so that the North Vietnamese had fewer camps to protect.[23] This created the "Camp Unity" communal living area at Hoa Lo, which greatly reduced the isolation of the POWs and improved their morale.[13][23]

Notable inmates

See also: Alcatraz Gang

Post-war accounts

After the implementation of the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, neither the United States nor its allies ever formally charged North Vietnam with the war crimes revealed to have been committed there. Extradition of North Vietnamese officials who had violated the Geneva Convention, which they had always insisted officially did not bind them because their nation had never signed it, was not a condition of the U.S. withdrawal from South Vietnam and ultimate abandonment of the South Vietnamese government. In the 2000s, the Vietnamese government has held the position that claims that prisoners were tortured during the war are fabricated, but that Vietnam wants to move past the issue as part of establishing better relations with the U.S.[24] Bùi Tín, a North Vietnamese Army colonel-later turned dissident and exile, who believed that the cause behind the war had been just but that the country's political system had lost its way after reunification,[25] maintained in 2000 that no torture had occurred in the POW camps.[26] Tin stated that there were "a few physical hits like a slap across the face, or threats, in order to obtain the specific confessions," and that the worst that especially resistant prisoners such as Stockdale and Jeremiah Denton encountered was being confined to small cells.[26] Tran Trong Duyet, a jailer at Hoa Lo beginning in 1968 and its commandant for the last three years of the war, maintained in 2008 that no prisoners were tortured.[24] However, eyewitness accounts by American servicemen present a different account of their captivity.

After the war, Risner wrote the book Passing of the Night detailing his 7 years at the Hanoi Hilton. Indeed, a considerable literature emerged from released POWs after repatriation, depicting Hoa Lo and the other prisons as places where such atrocities as murder; beatings; broken bones, teeth and eardrums; dislocated limbs; starvation; serving of food contaminated with human and animal feces; and medical neglect of infections and tropical disease occurred. These details are revealed in famous accounts by McCain (Faith of My Fathers), Denton, Alvarez, Day, Risner, Stockdale and dozens of others. In addition, the Hanoi Hilton was depicted in the eponymous 1987 Hollywood movie The Hanoi Hilton.

Hỏa Lò in the late 1970s and early 1980s

The prison continued to be in use after the release of the American prisoners. Among the last inmates was dissident poet Nguyễn Chí Thiện, who was reimprisoned in 1979 after attempting to deliver his poems to the British Embassy, and spent the next six years in Hỏa Lò until 1985 when he was transferred to a more modern prison. He mentions the last years of the prison, partly in fictional form, in Hỏa Lò/Hanoi Hilton Stories (2007).[27]

Demolition, conversion and museum

John McCain's flight suit and parachute, on display in the museum part of the Hoa Lo site.

Most of the prison was demolished in the mid-1990s and the site now contains two high-rise buildings, one of them the 25-story Somerset Grand Hanoi serviced apartment building.[3] Other parts have been converted into a commercial complex retaining the original French colonial walls.[28] Only part of the prison exists today as a museum. The displays mainly show the prison during the French colonial period, including the guillotine room, still with original equipment, and the quarters for male and female Vietnamese political prisoners.[29] Exhibits related to the American prisoners include the interrogation room where many newly captured Americans were questioned (notorious among former prisoners as the "blue room") is now made up to look like a very comfortable, if spartan, barracks-style room. Displays in the room claim that Americans were treated well and not harmed (and even cite the nickname "Hanoi Hilton" as proof that inmates found the accommodations comparable to a hotel's). Propaganda in the museum includes pictures of American POWs playing chess, shooting pool, gardening, raising chickens, and receiving large fish and eggs for food. The museum's claims are contested by former prisoners' published memoirs and oral histories broadcast on C-SPAN identify the room (and other nearby locales) as the site of numerous acts of torture.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Logan, William S. (2000). Hanoi: Biography of a City. University of New South Wales Press. ISBN 0-86840-443-8. pp. 67–68.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Zinoman, Peter (2001). The Colonial Bastille: A History of Imprisonment in Vietnam, 1862–1940. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-22412-4. p. 52.
  3. 1 2 "Vietnam's Hanoi Hilton – Hell on Earth". Retrieved 2008-04-23.
  4. 1 2 3 Coram, Robert (2007). American Patriot: The Life and Wars Of Colonel Bud Day. Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0-316-75847-7. p. 178.
  5. ↑ Zinoman, The Colonial Bastille, p. 54.
  6. 1 2 Logan, Hanoi, p. 145.
  7. ↑ Tours of Vietnam: War, Travel Guides, and Memory – Page 1 Scott Laderman – 2008 "Following the 1954 Geneva Accords that put an end to French suzerainty in Indochina, Hoa Lo Prison, as the institution was called by the Vietnamese, fell under the authority of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the independent Vietnamese ..."
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Frisbee, John L. (February 1989). "Valor en Masse". Air Force Magazine.
  9. ↑ Hubbell, John G. (1976). P.O.W.: A Definitive History of the American Prisoner-Of-War Experience in Vietnam, 1964–1973. New York: Reader's Digest Press. ISBN 0-88349-091-9. p. 18.
  10. ↑ (later Navy Rear Admiral Robert H. Shumaker)
  11. ↑ Honor Bound: American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia, 1961–1973 – Page 96 Stuart I. Rochester, Frederick T. Kiley – 2007 "There is disagreement among the first group of PWs as to who actually named Hoa Lo the Hanoi Hilton, but the nickname ... the message "Welcome to the Hanoi Hilton" on the handle of a pail to greet the arrival of Air Force Lt. Robert Peel."
  12. 1 2 Rochester, Stuart I.; Kiley, Frederick (1999). Honor Bound: American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia, 1961–1973. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-55750-694-9. pp. 292–294.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Lieut. Commander John S. McCain III, United States Navy (1973-05-14 (reposted under title "John McCain, Prisoner of War: A First-Person Account", 2008-01-28)). "How the POW's Fought Back". U.S. News & World Report. Check date values in: |date= (help) Reprinted in Library of America staff (1998). Reporting Vietnam, Part Two: American Journalism 1969–1975. Library of America. ISBN 1-883011-59-0. pp. 434–463.
  14. ↑ Parker, Adam (2008-10-19). "Former Vietnam POW recalls ordeal, fellowship". The Post and Courier. Retrieved 2009-06-27.
  15. 1 2 3 Karnow, Stanley (1983). Vietnam: A History. The Viking Press. ISBN 0-670-74604-5. p. 655.
  16. 1 2 3 Mahler, Jonathan (2005-12-25). "The Prisoner". The New York Times Magazine.
  17. ↑ Hubbell, P.O.W., pp. 288–306.
  18. ↑ Hubbell, P.O.W., p. 548.
  19. ↑ Thorsness, Leo (2009-06-07). "Surviving Torture". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Archived from the original on June 30, 2009. Retrieved 2009-06-27.
  20. 1 2 Farrell, John Aloysius (2000-01-23). "'A refining experience'". The Boston Globe.
  21. 1 2 "U.S. Fliers Well Treated, Hanoi Says". The Washington Post. United Press International. 1969-06-06.
  22. ↑ Karnow, Vietnam, pp. 655–656.
  23. 1 2 Glines, C. V. (November 1995). "The Son Tay Raid". Air Force Magazine.
  24. 1 2 "'Hanoi Hilton' jailer says he'd vote for McCain". USA Today. Associated Press. 2008-06-27. Retrieved 2008-07-25.
  25. ↑ Bui Tin (1991-10-20). "Vietnam: The Betrayal of A Revolution; Victims of Discredited Doctrine, My People Now Look to America". The Washington Post.
  26. 1 2 "American Experience: Return With Honor: Online Forum". PBS. 2000-11-15. Retrieved 2008-07-07.
  27. ↑ Nguyễn Chí Thiện Hỏa Lò/Hanoi Hilton Stories Yale University, Southeast Asia Studies, 2007 "During the roughly fifteen years spent as a political prisoner in Vietnamese labor camps from 1960 to 1977, Nguyen Chi Thien composed hundreds of poems. Released following the fall of Saigon, Thien delivered a manuscript of these poems to the British Embassy in Hanoi. He was arrested at the gate and taken to Hoa Lo – the well known “Hanoi Hilton” Prison, where he spent six of an additional twelve years of imprisonment, often in solitary confinement.
  28. ↑ Passport Vietnam: your pocket guide to Vietnamese business Page 13 Jeffrey E. Curry, Chinh T. Nguyen – 1997 "(Hundreds of Vietnamese died in Hoa Lo prison — the famous "Hanoi Hilton" — long before it was used as a prison for American pilots. It is being turned into a commercial complex, but its original French colonial walls are being left as"
  29. ↑ Frommer's Southeast Asia – Page 270 Daniel White, Ron Emmons, Jennifer Eveland – 2011 "Hoa Lo Prison (Hanoi Hilton) For sheer gruesome atmosphere alone, this ranks near the top of the must-see list. ... To the west is the guillotine room, still with its original equipment, and the female and Vietnamese political prisoners' quarters.

Further reading

Media related to Hanoi Hilton at Wikimedia Commons

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